French clubs have admitted using the Rugby Champions Cup – the competition they were planning with Premiership Rugby to replace the Heineken Cup and ERC – as a stalking horse to drive their plans to overhaul the way rugby union is run in Europe.
The French are determined to follow football’s model and set up a Uefa-style body, based in Geneva, to run the game from top to bottom. Paul Goze, president of the Ligue Nationale de Rugby, the body made up of the clubs in the top two divisions in France, said that was one of the key factors behind the Top 14 clubs voting for a year’s stay of execution on the Heineken Cup. That decision dealt a severe blow to English clubs’ desire to create a new European tournament.
While French clubs, along with Premiership Rugby, have spent the past 18 months battling with the unions – who hold the majority on European Rugby Cup (ERC) – the French Rugby Federation (FFR) has been trying to convince its fellow members on the Six Nations committee that the game needs to become all-embracing rather than elitist.
That is why the French clubs last week recommended that the Heineken Cup continue for one more season under ERC administration. “The new structure we are looking for cannot be put together in a few months,” said Goze.
Goze admitted knowing the French clubs had no chance of taking part in the English clubs’ plans because French law requires sporting organisations to compete only in tournaments that are sanctioned by their governing body. “The Rugby Champions Cup was not an end in itself, but a means to achieve progress on issues such as meritocracy, financial distribution and governance,” he said. “We succeeded in the first two, but governance will take a bit longer. It was a case of being pragmatic and we think we can achieve what we want in another way. We want a different structure to run the game, federation style, as happens in football, and we have more than a year to sort it out.”
The FFR has come under pressure from Fira, the body made up of the smaller unions in Europe, with whom it has a close relationship, to broaden the remit of the Six Nations, which it sees as a closed shop that effectively only runs one tournament.
When the unions met in Dublin last month and announced that the Heineken Cup would be continuing next season without the English clubs, the statement they issued included a cryptic final paragraph: “The common aim is to move eventually towards the integration of European competitions within an all-encompassing European rugby framework.”
The FFR and its clubs want that integration to happen at the start of the 2014-15 season, but others are fearful of the impact of a democratic approach, which could lead to a second division in the Six Nations. Both French bodies are unhappy that the Six Nations and ERC are based in Dublin, and want the Uefa-style body to be based in Switzerland because of its rugby neutrality, as well as for tax reasons.
Competitions, such as European club rugby, would have a sub-office elsewhere, possibly London, where they would be run on a daily basis. The French envisage that the Heineken Cup would be run commercially by the leagues. “If the unions do not concede that, there will be no competition,” said Goze.
The short-term question is whether the French plan for a transition year next season, with ERC continuing to run the Heineken Cup, will come off. The Premiership clubs will meet this week to debate whether to take part, having sworn they would have nothing more to do with ERC after the end of the season.
“If the English decide not to take part, we will have to decide whether we will – and I think we will not participate,” said Goze, “but I do not want to anticipate what may happen: the idea is that the English do play in Europe ahead of the structural change from 2014.”
The uncertainty is not what the four Welsh regions wanted to hear. They have until the end of the month to sign a new four-year participation agreement with their union. The offer is for a roll-on deal that does not include an increase in the £6.2m they receive, apart from an annual inflation-linked rise.
“If we sign and nothing happens in Europe, we will have condemned our businesses,” one regional administrator said. “If we do not sign, our money will stop in June and we would not have the means to pay our players. Europe is the key to this, but no one seems to know what is going on.”
Article source: http://www.express.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/444968/Wasps-5-Bath-28-Dai-Young-apologises-for-sorry-display
Rugby Champions Cup used by French to drive revamp of European game
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